I bought these dry seasoned riblets and i’m trying to figure out how to cook them in the oven
I bought them in a Hispanic/Latin ethnic supermarket so it got the red dry seasoning on it
Some sites say you just pour bbq sauce and liquid smoke over then and cook them at 200 for 8 hours or more … any ideas ?
I would place them in the smallest baking dish I had available that would hold all the riblets in a single layer. Pour a small amount of good beer (1/4 inch or less) in the bottom of the dish and cover with foil. Depending on your preferences, you might wish to add some sliced onion and/or hot peppers as well. Bake at 300F until not quite tender to your liking. I would start checking them at two and a half hours and check them every half hour until you’re happy with them. Apply your favorite sauce if desired and finish them off with the grill or under the broiler to give them a little gnarly char. If using a sweeter sauce, be careful and don’t let it get too burned. All the tomato and sugar can turn to a carbonized shell under intense direct heat.
Yeah, as Alpha Twit said, you don’t want to put BBQ sauce on for the whole cooking time, ESPECIALLY if if has a high sugar content-- and most commercial sauces are pretty sugary. You want to add sauce, if at all, in the last 20 minutes to 1/2 hour of cooking. Some people like ribs with just the dry rub, and for preseasoned ribs, sauce might be overkill. So maybe even save the sauce to serve on the side after cooking and see if it works with the ribs.
And I’m all for low and slow, but 200 for 8 hours seems a little TOO low and slow for riblets. When I cook ribs, I usually do it in a smoker or grill at around 250 degrees using the 3-2-1 method: 3 hours with ribs exposed to the smoke, 2 hours wrapped in foil (to get them falling-off-the-bone tender) and 1 hour at the end with the foil opened to make the outside crust, or “bark”. But even with full-sized ribs, 6 hours seems a little too long sometimes.
I’d cook them in your oven at 250, add a little liquid smoke if you want (not familiar with using it, but I bet a little goes a long way), and monitor per Alpha Twit’s recommendation to see how done they seem.
@nightshadea
How did they turn out?
Last week we bought (and made) for the first time pre-seasoned ribs, which I think would be similar to your riblets. Our ribs weren’t a dry rub, but rather a “honey-BBQ” sauce, so effectively pre-marinaded.
I didn’t see this thread, but found an online recipe similar similar to what Solost suggests, except I tented them in foil at the start, baked them at 250 for about 3.5 hours, then removed the foil and added my own BBQ sauce and then cooked them for another 25 minutes at 375.
The ribs meat came out great, tender and fall off the bone. However, my first experience with the pre-seasoned product was disappointing. I don’t think I’ll buy it again. They definitely needed additional sauce to finish them and the sauce I added was different than what was on them. They would have been much better if the producer included a packet of their sauce for final basting.
The cooking method however was a winner. I always boil my ribs, then marinade them for 24 hours in homemade sauce, then additional slow cook on the bbq, adding more sauce near the end. I’ve never done the slow cook oven method before, but I’ll definitely do it again, especially when it’s cold out and the house is happy to be heated by the oven for 4 hours.